


this is home

by Iyliss



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26670022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iyliss/pseuds/Iyliss
Summary: Saiou and Edo comes back home.
Relationships: Edo Phoenix | Aster Phoenix/Saiou Takuma | Sartorius
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	this is home

**Author's Note:**

> Just a character introspection fic I wrote to keep my mind buzy. Don't take it for much more than that. Not specifically romantic.

The car’s vibrations felt strangely familiar. As Saiou started to remember the streets, he also recognized the way Edo and him were placed in the car. It was the same as all the time they had came back home from something together -usually a tournament or some other dueling event Edo participated in. Though the atmosphere was surely different, they still were sitting just like they did as children. When dueling became Edo’s job, and accompanying him Saiou’s, all the travel they had felt different. They were maybe a little too formal, a little too serious, and so many other things, creating a distance between them despite still sitting next to each other on the backseat.

That gap had close now. Edo wasn’t proudly re-telling the hype of some duel, and Saiou wasnt enjoying his warm excitement; but he was looking at him just as fondly, and Edo’s eyes scearching for the right street to indicate to the driver felt just as warm.

They started talking abrutly. Some silly conversation about this and that, some store that closed in the last few years, the nearby playground that was under construction, and hom the restaurant that made the corner of their street had now a brand new yellow front. Saiou realized how much everything had changed. They never entered that store, never played on that playground, and all he could remember from the restaurant’s old look is that time they two would watch the painter working and wondering what kind of place it’d be, up from the living room window of Edo’s place.

Saiou never called that flat his home. Though he had been living there for years, and surely knew the place better than Edo did, it still never really belung to him. Somehow, saying ‘Edo’s home’ made him feel a little less like a parasite. And now, memories brought by the changed streets and buildings, he realized that despite all that, this was still the place he had grown familiar with.

They hadn’t even discussed it. When Saiou received the news he could leave the hospital, he hadn’t even wondered where he would go. And, when Edo gave his own address, he didn’t react for long enough that, by the time he realized Edo had just invited him without any question, they were on their way. Yet it would be absurd to oppose. Where else could he go ?

He didn’t exactly know how they ended up living in that place. Something about Edo’s old house being too big for a child who would see his legal guardian maybe once every month, and that his father’s work studio wasn’t suitable for living after he died in it. But whatever happened at the adult’s table, it led to Edo, and subscequently Saiou, living in that flat.

Saiou quite liked the place, not that he had any other references, but he liked to believe there was something in it that appealed to him. And no matter what he thought, he was excited to go back there. When the building appeared and the car stopped in front of the door, he felt relieved. He tried to not think it, but he was simply happy to be home.

When Edo opened the door to let Saiou enter, he couldn’t help but let it out.

« I am glad to be back. »

That’s when Edo realized he too, was glad to be back home.

Edo always wanted to take himself for a risk-taker, the kind that don’t like everyday boringness. But, ever since Saiou had been normal again, and every time he went to see him at the hospital, he only sought that. Everyday, normalness, familiarity. Everytime Saiou giggled, everytime his eyes wandered as he was telling about something he was passionate about, Edo felt like he had won a little something.

The truth is, he dreaded to see the changes. He was terrified to realize Saiou wasn’t still so much like he used to, nor that he was enough of the same either. But as meetings and discussion went on, his fear was appeased. Saiou was the same, the same as before he was possessed. Maybe even, the same as even before that, when they were only kids.

Throughout the car ride, Edo hadn’t really looked at the streets. He didn’t really care about them, they were the same as anywhere else. But he did look at what Saiou’s gaze would focus on, and immediately recalled a memory of that place they shared. It was, quite honestly, a bit forced from him. He didn’t mind, since Saiou’s smile was sincere.

He didn’t care about the flat either. He had barely lived there in the last months, if not the last years. For his work, and his revenge, he had travelled so many time he didn’t really considered that place as anything special. He already felt the heartbreak of leaving a home when he moved there, and thought he just hadn’t try to rebuild the connection. He had just picked that adress because he didn’t have any other, and it was quite an easy solution.

But, when he opened the door, he felt like something was different. The flat didn’t feel as empty, just waiting to be occupied. The walls weren’t so gray, the decoration not as impersonal, and he felt safe just standing on the entrance. And then, when Saiou talked, he understood.

Edo remembered when he stopped going back to that place. He always thought it was when dueling became his work, and he had to travel for weeks to attend various championships. He assumed that the reason why he was so uncomfortable going back there for the few days he still had in his hometown was because of the uncleaness. Because maintining a flat he’d leave soon enough just wasn’t worth the effort. Eventually, he even avoided the place to sleep at some hotel. He thought it was his work, but he realized then something else had happened. It was when Saiou stopped living there.

It was rather brutal, yet Edo never questionned it. What could he even say ? They never really talked about how to organize their life, how to make sense of the rather unique fact they were living together while not exactly being family or roommates. Edo explained it to himself as a return to the normal, but it’s when things started being different.

It was also when Saiou started hiding some of his activities, when the meaning of his words lost their clarity, when he wasn’t entirely himself - as Edo was aware now.

Entering the flat with Saiou behind him filled Edo with memories and wramth. He felt at home, not only in that place, but in the way Saiou kneeled to take off his shoes, in the way he put his jacket up like he always did, and in the way he gently looked at Edo waiting for him to close the door. Seeing him there, back at the center of his life, he felt like he had just come back from a long long travel.

Finally, Edo felt home.


End file.
